Pharmacy Town: What's fueling school's growth?
Photos/Christina H. Davis
REAL ESTATE ROUNDUP: The Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences footprint in downtown Worcester includes four buildings. (1) The former Crowne Plaza Hotel, which the school acquired in June. (2) 19 Foster St. (3) 25 Foster St. (4) 40 Foster St.
The Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences certainly isn’t new to Worcester. The Boston-based school, founded in 1823, first set up shop in the city in 2000 with a class of just 90 pharmacy students.
But over the years, the college has steadily expanded its footprint throughout downtown, capped off by its recent acquisition of the struggling Crowne Plaza Hotel.
And according to local officials and real estate agents in the city, MCPHS’s continued commitment to Worcester is a good sign for economic development.
Land Grab
On the streets downtown, passersby can recognize students from MCPHS by their white coats as they walk between buildings on the college’s Worcester campus, which now includes four buildings.
MCPHS’s initial move to Worcester was driven by growing enrollment and limited space on the college’s campus in Boston’s Longwood Avenue medical area. Worcester offered an attractive location where students could experience their clinical rotations at nearby medical facilities, such as St. Vincent Hospital and UMass Memorial Medical Center, according to Charles F. Monahan Jr., the college’s president.
The college initially acquired two buildings at 19 and 25 Foster St. and renovated them for use as classrooms and living space.
Later, the college acquired 40 Foster St., bringing the school’s Foster Street footprint to 180,000 square feet.
But the most recent addition to the college’s real estate cache is the acquisition of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which is several blocks away from Foster Street. The hotel was struggling and slated to go out of business when MCPHS swooped in to purchase the building for $16.8 million. The lower levels of the hotel will be reconstructed as laboratory and classroom space. The 243 guest rooms will provide student housing. To date, the MCPHS has invested $85 million in downtown Worcester, Monahan said.
In Worcester, the college — which expanded its curriculum beyond pharmacy in the late 70s — offers programs in pharmacy, nursing, and nurse practitioner and physician assistant studies. New programs in ultrasound and physical therapy will be added, housed in the hotel complex. Another MCPHS campus opened in 2002 in Man-chester, N.H., offers programs in pharmacy, nursing, and physician assistant studies.
Earning a doctor of pharmacy degree traditionally takes six years: two years studying arts and sciences, and then four years professional pharmacy study. Part of the allure of MCPHS Worcester is that it offers an accelerated pharmacy program — students attend year-round, compressing the usual four years into two years and 10 months. That abbreviated schedule is drawing students, and causing the school to project increases in coming years.
This year, nearly 800 students are enrolled on the Worcester campus, 600 of which are in the pharmacy program, Monahan said. In 2011, entering pharmacy classes will increase from an average of 200 students per class to 250. In the next few years, with additional programs and growing enrollment, the number of students is expected to reach 2,000. The college employs faculty and staff numbering 175 now, increasing to 200 in two years, Monahan said.
Town And Gown
Downtown Worcester has definitely benefited from the college’s presence, according to William D. Kelleher IV, vice president at Kelleher & Sadowsky, a Worcester commercial real estate firm.
“There is no downside,” he said. “The upside is to populate downtown with young students. They will be working and living downtown, and spending money.”
There have been some detractors of the college’s presence downtown who complain that the nonprofit college is taking real estate off the local tax rolls. However, some of those critics were silenced last year when the MCPHS announced plans to pay between $1.25 million and $1.5 million to the Worcester Public Library.
The college has “already put more feet on the street,” said Timothy J. McGourthy, director of economic development for the city of Worcester. “As the population of [MCPHS] grows, we will see more residential growth, and retail and restaurant development for people living downtown.”
McGourthy added that MCPHS’s acquisition of the Crowne Plaza, which is across Route 9 from Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Gateway Park campus, promises to revitalize the neighborhood, which is known as Lincoln Square.
“Lincoln Square will become the center of something instead of being on the periphery,” McGourthy said.
Eric Trachtenberg, a pharmacy student from Eugene, Ore., just finished his first year.
“When I first got here I was blown away. The train station — all this beautiful architecture,” he said. People he meets tell him what they think.
“I work at a pharmacy and I frequently have customers tell me, ‘We’re so happy your college is buying up properties in town. It will revitalize downtown.’ ”
Competition
Of course, MCPHS isn’t the only game in New England when it comes to pharmacy education, and some schools are also just beginning to set up pharmacy programs, which could mean increased competition for the Worcester campus in the future.
According to Elizabeth Cardello, director of corporate alliances at the Washington, D.C.-based American Pharmacists Association, Northeastern University in Boston, University of Rhode Island in Kingston and University of Connecticut in Storrs have had programs for years.
Two new programs opened in Maine in 2009: at Husson University in Bangor and the New England College of Pharmacy, Portland. Albany College of Pharmacy also opened up a campus in Colchester, Vt., last year.
Western New England College in Springfield and St. Joseph College of West Hartford, Conn., plan to open programs in 2011.
Careers
With the growth of the Worcester MCPHS and other pharmacy programs, one might wonder where all those students will work when they graduate.
Monahan contends that “there is a dire need for health-care professionals. Hospitals can’t hire enough nurse practitioners or physician assistants.”
But pharmacists do seem to be in ample supply, at least according to national statistics.
The Pharmacy Manpower Project Inc. of Mare Island Vallejo, Cal., reports moderate demand for pharmacists. With 1 indicating a large surplus of pharmacists and 5 a severe shortage, the national average was 3.28 in May 2010.
Individual states range from having a moderate surplus (Arizona, 2.2; Nevada, 2.5) to a moderate shortage (Alaska, 4.00, Texas, 3.89). Overall, New England showed balanced supply and demand.
But Cardello of the American Pharmacists Association said that the pharmacists in the Baby Boom generation will be retiring in the next 10 years, making way for new graduates in the long term.
Bot talk of graduation and job-hunting is still far away from many students at the Mass. College of Pharmacy, including Annmae Javier.
She came to Worcester from Phoenix, Ariz., and graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester before entering MCPHS.
So far, she has enjoyed living downtown, especially the convenience of being in the middle of things; being able to walk to her classes, to St. Vincent Hospital, to restaurants.
And as she walks, she is proud to be seen wearing her white coat.
Barbara Donohue is a freelance writer based in Acton.
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